Brane Mozetič

from Unfinished Sketches of a Revolution

two months after my birth the ljubljana streetcar ranfor the last time. due to the short-sightedbuilders of the bright future. and che guevaraand the rebels attacked santa clara. i walked itsdreary little streets relieved, freed of a boywho would devour me alive. and a year later the swissvoted against women’s right to voteat a referendum. while i was given a right to breathe. iwas one of the three billions of people on earth.memories begin at age five, when there wasan earthquake in skopje, john kennedy was shotand edith piaf died. i was enjoying the lastmonths of carefree country living,afterwards i became a ljubljana dude, integratedinto the mechanism of socialist education. the tensespace race started, teacher comrades taught usabout the vietnamese war, famine in biafra,we collected aid, and in ‘68 they shot robert kennedy,i learned about it in a store, we all trembled for his life.here comes the prague spring, my cousin is warnedagainst the student riots, and the famous riots at stonewallhappen the following year, about which i learned only muchlater. but i was glued to the tv screen together with otherswhen the first man stepped on the moon. and i knew all aboutthe gruesome murder of sharon tate. my cousin infects mewith music, i mourn with him when jimi hendrix,janis joplin, jim morrison leave, but i jump the mostto the song abc, by the group jackson 5 where thatlittle one sings who’s the same age as me. my mom gives birthto a daughter, the family is expanding, while i like it less and less. except that now i can go to my grandma by car,which i do regularly. i am the shortest in class and fall in lovewith my classmates, who i write poems about. it becomesclear to everyone that i’m a weirdo. when i’m fourteen,members of the red army faction are shut away, disco music is in full bloom, i drag myself to vienna to the concert ofjoan baez, and to munich to see the group yes. when they killpasolini, i’m already kissing a boy, and when visconti diesin 1976, i’m already familiar with all of his movies,have read death in venice for the tenth timeand have declared my love for my schoolmate.then the world turns upside down. a female friend becomesmuch more, i get a son, by the time kardelj9 dies we’re alreadymarried. in 1980 tito dies and in autumn my grandpa does, too– the only man of my childhood. i publish poems,translate, study, give rides to my child, for long hoursmy wife and i mull over the world, society, politics– and we want to change it all. wars come one after another,afghanistan, lebanon, the falklands, iran, iraq. the yearwhen sarajevo hosts the winter olympic games,when russians invent the game tetris,when indira gandhi is murdered and when michelfoucault dies, our peaceful family life breaks down.i board a train for paris, and then the train home, i goto the first festival of homosexual culture in easterneurope, i walk among the 5000 participants of the parisgay pride, i bring boys into my parisian roomand find a passionate love in a martiniquais who wants me entirelyfor himself. for at least three years life is spasmodicallycaught between her and him, i hardly register the nucleardisaster in chernobyl until his possessiveness brings me backto the ground and i turn again to the everyday whichis beginning to boil, alternative types are replaced by nationalists,colors fade, we all push for greater freedom, butwe imagine it in different ways. in 1988 perestroika startsin the soviet union, in my country: the trial against the four,10 protest meetings and long debates, predators and vulturesjoin in. when i translate the thief’s journal, mymarriage finally falls apart, and i become a gayactivist. the communist regimes of eastern europe crashlike dominoes, political parties blossom in my country,we, too, establish the roza klub,11 as a farce, an irony or anunrealistic dream. in ‘90 i am confused, but accordingto the decree of the world health organization i am no longera mental patient, i support the slovenian declaration for peace,12which calls for the demilitarization of slovenia, but the militarylobbies are stronger, the hands of politics greedier,and the yugoslav wars begin.